Content warning: This story discusses sexual abuse of minors.
For 11 seasons, 7th Heaven was an outlier among hit primetime programming, and not just because it launched Jessica Biel‘s estimable career.
The WB drama about the Camden family—pastor dad, homemaker mom and their children (five to start, then twins arrived in season three)—tackled all the usual teen show issues, including dating, sex, drugs, racism and school struggles, but in an unmistakably faith-and-family-friendly way.
Overseeing the sibling chaos supplied by Biel, Barry Watson, David Gallagher, Beverley Mitchell and Mackenzie Rosman were Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks, who played the busy but always attentive parents Eric and Annie Camden.
When the series signed off in 2006, having spent its final season helping the WB and UPN successfully merge into the CW, the stars went their separate amicable ways. And if all had gone accordingly, perhaps there would’ve been a reboot or big reunion special featuring the whole family.
Instead, a 2012 audio recording—first published by TMZ in October 2014—in which Collins purportedly admitted to sexual misconduct with three underage girls during a therapy session with his then-wife Faye Grant effectively ended his 40-year career in Hollywood.
And while it should never be a surprise that actors are not their characters or vice versa, it was shocking.
Hence Hicks’ crack to TMZ in 2016 that, sure, they could keep the Camdens’ story going, but “we’d have to open with Stephen’s coffin.”
Collins is now the subject of the March 24 premiere of Investigation Discovery’s new series Hollywood Demons, which delves into the disturbing allegations against the now 77-year-old actor and how the scandal tarnished 7th Heaven‘s sterling legacy as a successful and wholesome hit show.
He was investigated by police in both New York and Los Angeles, authorities confirmed at the time, but was never charged due to the statute of limitations for prosecution.
E! News reached out to Collins, who did not participate in the show, for comment but did not hear back.
In a December 2014 statement to People, he admitted to sexual misconduct with minors decades beforehand.
“Forty years ago, I did something terribly wrong that I deeply regret,” he said at the time. “I have been working to atone for it ever since. I’ve decided to address these issues publicly because two months ago, various news organizations published a recording made by my then-wife, Faye Grant, during a confidential marriage therapy session in January, 2012. This session was recorded without the therapist’s or my knowledge or consent.”
The recording, he continued, “has resulted in assumptions and innuendos about what I did that go far beyond what actually occurred. As difficult as this is, I want people to know the truth.”
Grant denied being the source of the leak, telling ABC News, “Stephen’s statements about me are false and appear to be an attempt by him to deflect from his conduct. I sincerely hope Stephen gets the help he needs.”
Collins further denied that he was a pedophile in a subsequent interview with Katie Couric on ABC News’ 20/20, characterizing his admitted misconduct with three underage girls as isolated incidents.
“I’m absolutely not attracted, physically or sexually attracted to children,” he said. And if anyone other than the three people he acknowledged came forward with allegations against him, Collins said, “it would not be the truth.”
The ID documentary features one of Collins’ alleged victims telling her story on camera for the first time, as well as interviews with several 7th Heaven and WB network alums. The production notes that they reached out to “more than 100 contacts of Collins” and “nearly everyone declined to participate or did not respond.”
Read on for the biggest bombshells from the Hollywood Demons episode “Stephen Collins, American Dad”:
April Price Details Molestation Allegations Against Stephen Collins
In Investigation Discovery’s Hollywood Demons: Stephen Collins, American Dad, April Price alleged that Stephen Collins exposed himself to her on several different occasions in the summer of 1983, when she was 13.
E! News reached out to Collins for comment on the allegations detailed in the show but has not heard back. He admitted in a December 2014 statement to People to committing sexual misconduct with three underage girls “20, 32 and 40 years ago.”
Price said that she first went to visit her aunt, who worked in Los Angeles as a producer, during her spring break in 1983, and Collins was a neighbor at her apartment complex. The Midwest native recalled being “absolutely starstruck” and, as a huge fan of his ABC series Tales of the Gold Monkey, she knocked on his door to ask for an autographed head shot. He came through with his promise to send her a photo, writing on it (as shown in the series), “To April, come out and see us again some time,” signing it, “Love, Steve Collins.”
When she returned to spend the summer in L.A., Price alleges, she saw Collins walking naked through a courtyard visible from her aunt’s apartment on his way to the laundry room.
A few days later, Price continued, she asked Collins if he could help her hook up her Atari console in her aunt’s living room. While inside, she alleged, he turned around and she saw that his jeans were “completely open” and he was “completely exposed.”
Price said she was “supremely shocked” and “very uncomfortable” but also “didn’t want to insult him because he was kind to me and nice and doing me a favor.” So, she said, she tried to pretend nothing was amiss.
On another occasion, Price said, she was sitting in the courtyard eating breakfast when a bathrobe-clad Collins sat down with her and complimented her pretty feet. When she resisted the remark, she said, he told her she needed to learn how to take a compliment.
Price further said that, right before she was supposed to leave L.A. to return home, Collins asked if she wanted to look at some of the TV memorabilia he had in his apartment. “Still upset” by his previous behavior, she said, but rationalizing he wouldn’t do it again, she accepted. While she was perusing his mementos, he excused himself for a moment and was naked when he returned, Price alleged in the show.
“Now I’m actually scared,” Price said, describing that she made herself “as rigid and as small and as tight as I could make myself.” She estimated that she was in Collins’ apartment for 20 minutes before she saw her aunt come home through the window and used that as her excuse to leave.
In October 2014, after TMZ published a recording from a 2012 therapy session between Collins and then-wife Faye Grant in which he seemingly admitted to sexually abusing underage girls, a then-unnamed woman filed a police report alleging that Collins exposed himself to her at a West Hollywood apartment complex in 1983.
L.A. County Sheriff’s officials said the statute of limitations for an arrest in that case had passed, but they were investigating to see if there were more recent incidents. At the time authorities in L.A. and New York confirmed they were investigating allegations from four women. Collins was never charged.
In the recording, Collins referred to a girl by name, which was bleeped out, saying she “was the niece of the woman who lived across the way.”
Price said in the ID show that, as soon as she heard the recording, she knew he was talking about her and she called police the next day.
April Price Recalls Stephen Collins’ Apology
Price said that, when she found out about Collins’ 7th Heaven role, her silence started to weigh on her as she worried that what he did to her was “the starting point to a marathon.”
She ended up moving to L.A. to work in entertainment and unexpectedly crossed paths with Collins again in 1997—and Price said he used the opportunity to apologize to her.
She was working on affiliate promos for CBS, she recalled, and saw him on the call sheet. “The moment he saw me, he knew,” Price said. And when no one else was around, she continued, he came up to her and said, “‘I want you to know, what I did was extremely wrong, I feel terrible about it, please forgive me.'”
Price admittedly felt better. She remembered concluding, “He is sorry, he is contrite. So, I kept my mouth shut.” But, she added, “Looking back, I don’t think it was sincere. I think it was damage control.”
In 2014, Collins told People he had an opportunity 15 years after the fact to apologize to one of the three women he was sexually inappropriate with.
“I apologized and she was extraordinarily gracious,” he said. “But after I learned in the course of my treatment that my being direct about such matters could actually make things worse for them by opening old wounds, I have not approached the other two women, one of whom is now in her 50s and the other in her 30s.”
7th Heaven Actors Remember Thinking Stephen Collins Was the Greatest
Kyle Searles, who joined 7th Heaven in 2004 playing Mac, the best friend of Tyler Hoechlin‘s Martin, recalled Collins as the most congenial, unassuming guy who drove to work in an old Prius and would spend breaks chatting up extras and otherwise making everyone feel welcome.
“I always felt, I want to be like that,” Searles said in ID’s Hollywood Demons. “I need to model myself after him more.”
The actor said 7th Heaven “set the standard in my mind as to what a set should be like. And when I look back on my entire experience in the business, there’s only a couple of people I can look back on and say, they taught me something. Stephen was definitely right there, probably No. 1.”
Jeremy London, who teared up on camera as he recalled being fired from 7th Heaven after two seasons amid a spate of personal problems, said of Collins, “I wanted him to be my dad. I still want him to be my dad.”
7th Heaven Costars, WB President Recall How They Reacted to Stephen Collins Molestation Accusations
When London first heard the story, he thought it had to be about someone else.
“I was hearing some buzzings of it, but I wasn’t putting it with my Stephen Collins,” the Mallrats star said, “because there’s not a chance in hell my Stephen Collins is being accused of these things. You don’t accuse saints of things.”
Garth Ancier, the founding president of programming at 7th Heaven network The WB, concurred in the ID series, saying, “It actually does not line up with the Stephen Collins I knew, at all.” But, he added, when he first reacted he hadn’t yet heard the details Collins admitted to in the recording.
Searles said he didn’t listen to the recording, recalling that, at the time, “It was just me just trying to, you know, stick your head in the sand kind of thing.”
Searles is shown watching Collins’ 2014 20/20 interview—in which he denied being a pedophile but admitted to inappropriate touching with a girl as young as 10 and exposing himself to two other underage girls—for the first time.
“I’m kind of, like, shaking right now,” Searles said, noting that he never knew one of the girls was 10. “I have a knot in my stomach.”
Jeremy London Had a Really Hard Time Processing That Stephen Collins Admitted to Misconduct With 3 Girls
“Something happened. I don’t know what happened,” he recalled thinking when the story came out. “You’re messing with somebody that I love and care about. To see anybody messing with him, it still makes my blood boil.”
At the same time, speaking as a dad and thinking of young victims, London added, “Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child.”
Hollywood Demons premieres Mondays at 9/8c on ID and streams on Max.
